Local Man Pleads Guilty to Murder

He killed his father in Centreville.

Centreville  Gbassay “Omar” Koroma was slated to stand trial for murder, May 7, in Fairfax County Circuit Court. Instead, he pleaded guilty in March and will be sentenced next month.

And in reality, there was little doubt of his guilt since, shortly before he died, the victim — Koroma’s father, Francis, 38, — said his son murdered him. The tragedy occurred May 27, 2011, in the Centreville apartment they shared with the father’s girlfriend, Dora Gbolonyo.

She described what she saw and heard that night when she testified in court, Oct. 26, 2011, during Koroma’s preliminary hearing. She said she’d already gone to bed when, around 10:45 p.m., she was woken from sleep by a scream from Koroma, then 18.

“I opened my door, and Francis was at my door, bleeding, with one hand on his chest,” said Gbolonyo. “He said, ‘Call 911 — he [Omar] killed me.’ I saw Omar standing near the main door with a knife in his hand.”

She returned to her bedroom to call for help, but was too shaken by what had just happened. So when she realized Koroma had left the apartment, she went outside and asked two women she saw to call 911. Gbolonyo then rushed back to check on her boyfriend of four years.

“I saw Francis had fallen on the carpet, and I kneeled down and saw that he was breathing,” she said. “Then Omar came in and I ran out the back door. I’d heard his footsteps and was scared.”

Police arrived around 10:55 p.m. and the victim was rushed to Inova Fairfax Hospital. He died, early the next morning, May 28, 2011, around 4:15 a.m. Police retrieved the murder weapon, arrested Koroma and charged him with killing his father. Since that time, he’s been held without bond in the Adult Detention Center.

On March 9, Koroma pleaded guilty to murder before Circuit Court Judge Charles Maxfield. The teen is scheduled for sentencing on June 8.